Hotel Review: Gold Coast Hotel & Casino - Las Vegas
By traveltripz on Feb 29, 2008 in Hotel Reviews, Reviews, General, USA, Hotels
After picking up the car from the Alamo car rental company near the airport we drove back to the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino which we had just checked into that morning. We drove into the Self Parking area of the hotel which is free. Anyone bringing their car will find it easy to park. The car park is large, with plenty of space to maneuver. There is also valet parking which the attendent told us was free although a tip would be expected.
The hotel is situated at:
4000 W Flamingo Rd
Las Vegas NV 89103
Although the hotel is not on the strip it is not too far from it and there are always the shuttle buses which run every 20 minutes.
Check-in was quick and the gentleman behind the counter was friendly. We were given the keys to room 857 which was on the eigth floor.
Our first impression of the hotel lobby and casino was positive. We did notice that a good majority of the clientele were mature aged or couples with children. This hotel is definitely not as up market as the Rio Hotel which we stayed in earlier in the week.
The decor is Spanish/Mexican. I personally found the carpet which runs through most of the casino to be a little gaudy, however Wanda found it fitted well with the theme. The carpet in the hotel area was much more appealing in my opinion.
Our hotel room was a long way down the hall. It seemed to take us forever to get to our room especially after a long day of 
walking. Las Vegas hotels are just huge!
On the way to the room we pass an ice machine and a drink machine with Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other soda drinks.
Our room has quite a nice decor. It’s slightly outdated with it’s wood veneer finish but overall in excellent condition. The room is not huge but has plenty of space and is a comfortable size.
The room has a view of the the Palms Hotel and at night there is quite a spectacular view of the lights of the city. You can also see the surrounding mountain range from the window.
The lighting in the room is quite dark, however we found the same problem at the Rio Hotel across the road. There are no ceiling lights but instead a series of lamps located around the room. This makes the room a little dark for working in.
The room has two double beds with wood veneer headboards. The beds are quite high off the ground so if you are short, like Wanda, you may find yourself having a little difficulty climbing into bed. The beds are comfortable with a nice padded mattress topper. What we found annoying was the fact that there were only two pillows per bed, which is not a major issue, however the pillows were about three quarters the size of normal pillows. We heard someone else mention this in the lift.
There is plenty of storage space including a six drawer cabinet, a luggage rest which will hold one large suitcase or two small and an open wardrobe in the dressing room area.
In the corner of the room is a table with two chairs which holds the one cup coffee making machine.
Facing the beds is a flat wide screen tv. We don’t the size of the tv exaclty. Wanda thinks its a 32in but I think it might be a 
26in. The picture is excellent and there are something like 32 channels to choose from. In-house movies are also available for $10.99 each.
The room has an air conditioning unit that is a little noisy. We found that we really didn’t need to have it on much at all anyway, as the room had a comfortable temperature.
As with most US hotels, there are no facilities for making tea so we have to use the coffee maker to boil water. Tea bags are not usually available unless you specifically ask for them. It took a long time for us to clean the coffee grains from the machine so that the water was drinkable for tea.
The room has a dressing room area which is quite small. It contains a sink which is separate from the bathroom and an open wardrobe to hang clothes. It also includes a hair dryer and a iron and ironing board.
The bathroom is quite small and includes the toilet. The bathtub itself is a moulded plastic unit with a shower. The water pressure in the shower is quite strong and it was easy to control the water temperature. The bathroom doesn’t have a fan but instead has a small window that opens out.
The toiletries in the bathroom included Ecoessential products including a massage bar of soap, nourishing shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and a shower cap.
What I didn’t like was the fact that the sink is separated from the bathroom. The bathtub and toilet are in one room which has a lockable door. The sink on the other hand is in the dressing room area and does not have door.
The bathroom lighting was very dark and once the shower curtain was pulled across it got even darker.
There is no safe in the room. We carry a laptop and like to store it during the day while we are out so we missed having this feature. There is also no mini-bar or fridge if you have any food or drinks that you want to keep cool.
The room has both wired and wireless interent connections. We went for the wired connection which was $11.99 for a 24hr period. Connecting was a little confusing. We plugged in the laptop to the cable and it came up with a page that said ‘You will be charged $11.99′ and after we confirmed payment it went to another page that said ‘you have been granted access to the internet’. However when we tried to open up google.com, a page was returned linking to the Cheetah network which asked us to register again for $10.99. This process was confusing as we thought we had already paid and connected so had we continued to complete the Cheetah registration we would have paid twice for this service. A quick call to the service desk resolved the issue. Apparently we were automatically connecting to the wireless service so we had to disconnect the wireless connection and then everything worked fine.
The sign on the table states that the wired internet connection has five times faster speed. We found the speed to be excellent with no time-outs.
We ate a number of times in the casino restaurants. The buffet is fantastic value at $7.95 for lunch and $11.95 for dinner. These rates are for if you stay at the hotel or are a member. We signed up for the membership rewards card which was free and it took less than 5 minutes to register.
We also ate at the Monteray Restaurant for breakfast which cost us only $5.95 for two eggs, bacon, 2 sausages and two flapjacks which were huge. They came with syrup and creamery butter. It was way too much for us to eat.
The hotel also has a bowling alley and a pool although we didn’t get the chance to see either of these.
Our overall view of this hotel is that it is great value for money. We paid $59 per night online via Expedia.com. The food at the hotel is the cheapest we found during our stay in Las Vegas and there is excellent variety and quality for the money. This hotel is rated 3 stars and we would agree with this rating.
We would definitely stay here again.
Our Rating of the the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino:
Checking in and out 5/5
Room 3/5
Position 3.5/5
Price 4/5
Cleanliness 5/5
Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!
